And Then There’s Life

And Then There’s Life

I haven’t posted a new behavior goal to work on lately. There are a couple of key reasons for this:

Life is nuts right now.

I’m not doing so hot with my current goal.

My current goal is to leave a couple bites at meals – serve myself the same amount, but leave a little bit on my plate so that over time I can reduce my food intake and get better control over my portion sizes.

Why It’s Not Working

There is something about me that – unless I’m so full I’m in pain – I can’t seem to convince myself to leave food on my plate. What’s a couple bites going to hurt, right?

My Plan to Fix It

I’m still trying to teach myself to leave a few bites on my plate at the end of meals. I think it’s a good habit to incorporate into my routine. But it’s not enough. So here’s what else I’m going to try so that I can be successful in controlling my eating habits:

Serve myself smaller portions.

Wait 10-15 minutes before serving myself seconds.

Only get seconds if after that 10-15 minutes my hunger level is still around a 3-4 out of 10.

When dining out, get a to-go box at the start and save half the meal for later.

Allow myself to eat my whole breakfast without feeling guilty. (It is the most important meal of the day, after all!)

Keep trying to leave a couple bites.

Now, with this in mind, I’ll give myself another week and re-evaluate where I’m at. I have a lot of eating- and nutrition-related behaviors I’d like to improve. If it turns out this wasn’t a good one to start with, I’ll go back to the drawing board.

Now… About Life

One of the biggest obstacles for sticking with any sort of healthy living plan is that life gets in the way. You get busy, you get stressed, and you get overwhelmed. Before you know it, you’re nearly back to where you started.

There are ways to prepare for these moments. Preparations that I didn’t take. Not only are the holidays a rough time to be implementing any sort of habit change plans, but my family has been in crisis besides. A few days before Thanksgiving, my mom and stepdad’s house burned – they lost just about everything but the house itself. It was a devastating loss, but no one was hurt. For that, I’m forever thankful.

And while things are slowly improving, it still creates this sense of disruption and unfamiliarity that takes over, making it difficult to stick to the things I’m working on. I think everyone is familiar with this feeling in some sense or another. It just goes to show how important it is to be prepared for these situations. The preparation part, though, will be a post for another day.

For today, though: Be thankful, grateful, and appreciative, and hug someone you love.